Uzalo actor talks about playing molester pastor

In an interview the actor revealed that his most shocking moment on the soapie was when he rubbed his Pastor Oil into the breasts of the woman who’d come to him for prayer.

“It was very awkward,” admits Mondli. “I remember the night before I was stressed because I didn’t know who I was shooting with. I came early to work and luckily she was there and we spoke about the scene because we needed it to look real, and we needed it to be believed. So we spoke about how we felt about it. I think that helped because it looked real.”

Mondli knew his mom would be watching, which is awkward – but he also knew he’d have her full support.

“My mother knows who I am and she knows how she raised me, so she knows that I’m nothing like Pastor Nkosi. Some of the time I would watch with her but I would get nervous because I knew what’s going to happen but she didn’t. She called me the other day and she’s like, ‘Are you okay?’ After she saw the scene at the hospital (with Pastor Nkosi convincing Zinhle, played by Ayanda Mtshali, to commit suicide).

Out on the street Mondli finds that talking to fans is all it takes to get them to realise he’s nothing like Nkosi.

“In some places it gets tense but when you start to talk with the people they get to understand you better. I stop, I talk to everyone. If they want to talk, we talk, and that defuses every assumption that was there. To me it’s thumbs up if they don’t like me as Pastor Nkosi because then I know that I’ve done my work”.

For more on Pastor Nkosi’s comeuppance and the shocking way in which he exits Uzalo, don’t miss the 28 September issue of tvplus magazine, on sale from Friday 23 September.